Samuel Bagg

From Cory Doctorow: "AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations" damn I wish I had written that line
pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

Again Bouie from the top rope

I would like Never Trump Republicans to demand that George W. Bush appear and speak up for democracy in this country. Why do ppl always ask Obama to do things and “where is Kamala”? Where is the 43rd President of the United States while democracy crashes & burns. This is the party he led. 1/

i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation.

i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.

Luckily, Sinclair has a helpful database of all their stations, so you can see if they're operating in your area and respond accordingly.

sbgi.net/tv-stations/

New York Democratic Chairman Won’t Endorse Mamdani for Mayor

If the road to democratic renewal runs through better parties, and the formal Democratic Party is run by Jay Jacobs and his ilk, then we need a massive effort to unfuck the state parties and the "Bermuda triangle" of the DNC www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/n...

A picture of the 2025 class of Freedom Scholars, named by the Marguerite Casey Foundation: Stacey Sutton, Dian Millon, Aziz Rana, and Luke Herrine

Insanely honored to be associated with these brilliant folks. Still not totally sure this is real.

Trump admin live updates: Bessent says 'framework' for TikTok deal has been reached Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in Madrid for trade talks with China, said on Monday they have "a framework for a TikTok deal."

Let me guess: it involves selling TikTok's U.S. domestic operations to the right wing Ellison family and Oracle, who'll combine CBS/Paramount/Time Warner/CNN with TikTok to create one of the most effective right wing propaganda machines ever constructed?

Book review: @andysabl.bsky.social on @samuel-bagg.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Political violence disproportionately hurts people with less power, not people with more power. Political violence will disproportionately hurt people of color and women and LGBTQ people. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it works. Celebrating political violence means at best indifference to that.

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

I'm horrified by the shooting of Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah.

Political violence has no place in our country.

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

At the core of this is a student saying she refuses to engage with class material that goes “against our President’s laws”

NO THRONES. NO CROWNS. NO KINGS. SATURDAY, OCT. 18

Millions of Americans took to the streets in June to drown out Trump’s birthday parade.

As Trump’s regime escalates his authoritarian power grab, we’re gathering again on October 18 for a nationwide day of peaceful protests to say NO KINGS.

We hope you will join us: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...

We have a decades of scholarship on how pro-democracy forces win in competitive authoritarian systems: they form a united opposition that brings together people with otherwise profound political disagreements.

#NIH is hanging by a thread. The #CDC has been decimated. #RFK Jr. and Russell #Vought are psychopaths--I don't say this frivolously--they are cold, calculating, inflicting violence on millions through public policy. It is where we are right now. These men are not normal. 1/

On Dystopia, Fearing the Future and Political Imagination A Conversation with Matthew Cole

Had a great time on the Anti Dystopians talking to Matthew Cole about his new book on dystopianism and fearing the future!

open.substack.com/pub/alinautr...

Democratic Party-affiliated organizations that are actually meeting this moment are the ones that are helping organize mass mobilizations against the coup, not the ones bickering over precisely which combination of magic words Democratic candidates should use.

In a new article in @poppublicsphere.bsky.social I propose an institution reform to make representative government less oligarchic: having elected politicians held accountable by randomly selected "Constituency Juries"

Assistant Professor

🚨Job Alert 🚨

My department is hiring! We are advertising for three positions, including an open-subfield Assistant Professor with a focus on "Problems of Democracy," for which political theorists will be considered. Feel free to DM / email me your questions!

uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/192...

DOJ Removes All Mentions Of Justice From Website

DOJ Removes All Mentions Of Justice From Website theonion.com/doj-rem...

It’s striking how the workings of a competitive authoritarian system have already been internalized by the mainstream political press. It is now officially “politics as usual”.

Basically all my posts recently could be part of the same thread:

The problem of our time is governments—particularly the Trump administration, also the Netanyahu administration, etc—making policy based on factual premises that are not true, which they've gotten "many people" to believe are true.

YouTube video by Political Philosophy Podcast Elite Capture and Democracy with Samuel Bagg

youtube version of my interview with @samuel-bagg.bsky.social

youtu.be/nBSqYFDpDhc?...

And yet the same poll has the 2026 generic congressional ballot at D+3, so that high disapproval is coming entirely from partisan Democrats themselves. If you've ever wanted to challenge an ineffective Democratic incumbent, you're not going to have a better opportunity than next year.

Thrilled to have contributed to this wonderful symposium!

Did a news roundup, mostly because, under cover of Epstein, Dem leaders pulled a fast one on the grassroots voters demanding they fight harder—on the grounds that quitting is easier, and those of us holding them to a high standard pretty much suck. www.offmessage.net/p/jeffries-m...

The Oligarchs' Coup Against the Free Press Is Happening Now The American information space is not merely changing; it is undergoing a hostile takeover. It is a deliberate, coordinated campaign by a new class of oligarchs out of Silicon Valley that includes Jef...

The defunding of public media, the gutting of the Washington Post and LA Times, and the cancelation of Stephen Colbert by Paramount is all connected. It's part of a hostile takeover of our entire information space by the oligarchs.

www.thedissident.news/the-oligarch...